JIM NORTON INTERVIEWS BLACK SABBATH GUITARIST TONY IOMMI

This interview with founding BLACK SABBATH guitarist TONY IOMMI is Part 2 of a three part series of interviews with the original members of Black Sabbath conducted by Jim Norton at OZZFEST on July 26th, 2005 at PNC BANK Arts Center in Holmdel, NJ. Previously, we posted Jim Norton's interview with Sabbath drummer Bill Ward, and in a week or so, we'll post Jim's interview with Sabbath bass player GEEZER BUTLER. This piece wound up being pretty short, because Tony was a little miffed when Jim and I walked into Geezer's trailer in 'Sabbath Village'...apparently, there was an issue with Tony's bus driver that had set him off a little. Jim still managed to get in some great questions (especially considering what a die-hard Sabbath fan he is...check it out below...

Jim Norton: Congratulations on the new CD, it's fantastic!

Tony Iommi: Thanks very much.

Jim Norton: You're getting great reviews. Didn't the NY Post give you four stars?

Tony Iommi: Apparently so, yeah. I haven't seen it yet, but I already heard.

Jim Norton: Your new album seems to have a theme about recovery and letting go of the past. Was that intentional?

Tony Iommi: Yeah, I think some of it is. A lot of it is Glenn's [Hughes - read our 2004 interview here] life. Well, a lot of everybody's life, to be honest. Glenn did all the lyrics. I think he's sort of saying things that fits a lot of people.


Tony Iommi performing with BLACK SABBATH the night this interview was conducted

Jim Norton: How do you feel about being shunned from the Rock N' Roll Hall Of Fame?

Tony Iommi: Yeah, I don't understand it. Without blowing our own trumpet, I think we've done a lot for the music world. I think without us, you wouldn't have 90% of the rock bands around now.

Jim Norton: Did you think that 37 years later you would still be a popular as ever?

Tony Iommi: You don't think about things like that, [especially] when we first came out. We just wanted to do gigs and play as much as we could. You never really thought of it being around 30 odd years later. You don't even think you'll be around 10 years, but you just do it because you do it. We enjoy it.

Jim Norton: When you work on a solo project, do you intentionally try to avoid that Sabbath sound or does the music change on it's own because you are not working with the other members?

Tony Iommi: It just sort of happens. It's still the same format of writing riffs and coming up with ideas. It's the same sort of things that I do for Sabbath albums. Again, it depends on who's going to be singing because you tend [to change a bit] for who you are collaborating with. With Glenn, we influenced each other a lot and shared ideas, so it was good because it was a reflection of both of us.


Tony on the big screen with Ozzy and Geezer on the stage.

Jim Norton: Is there anything that you look back on and are particularly proud of?

Tony Iommi: I do that with a lot of things sometimes. [I say] 'how did I come up with that?' Somehow you can still keep coming up with ideas. "Into The Void" has a lot of changes, but it sort of worked. I like to do songs like that. On my new album, on the last track, we've done some various movement and changes in tempos and I like that sort of thing.

Jim Norton: Each Sabbath album has it's own unique sound. Creatively is that something you all decided or did that happen naturally?

Tony Iommi: Well, it just happened. When Paranoid came out and that got to #1, you can't follow it up. You know what I'm saying? 'Well, we're going to do another album like that.' So you just do it to what you feel creatively at that time. Which could have gone either way. We could have come up with something totally different. You never do know with us because we've written some various different ideas. Some of them have never even seen the light of day.

Jim Norton: I remember seeing you play in '99 and one of the nicest things was watching you look around and smile. You seemed genuinely happy to be there. Was it great getting back together? Did you really miss the whole vibe of being with other three guys?

Tony Iommi: Oh absolutely! For us all to play together again, we were so lucky that everyone was still about and [that] we can still do that. It's a great thrill to be able to be with the guys. Every night we try, between Bill, Geezer and myself, to musically outdo what we did the night before. Or, we try to make things different in the set, playing wise. We don't play the same things. It's good and it's healthy. Bill Ward and myself, go for walks every morning and we talk about the show last night and I think that it seems to work for us.

Jim Norton: Is there any song that you haven't played live in a long time that you would like to do?

Tony Iommi: There's lots of stuff I'd like to play live and so would Bill and Geezer, but it's very hard to work out a set. We have to make sure that Ozzy is all right with singing it. Obviously, over the years, you're voice changes and there's quite a lot I think we'd like to do.

Jim Norton: Like "Symptom Of The Universe", you started that song...

Tony Iommi: Yeah, we'd love to that and "Hole In The Sky", but of course that was so high when he sang that, it's hard to...In fact we used to do them onstage many years ago.

Jim Norton: The lyrics to "Wars Pigs" were eventually changed, was that a record company decision or something that the band wanted to do?

Tony Iommi: I think we just made the lyrics up at the time. Ozzy would either get them wrong or be making them up. Like some of the stuff at the time, we hadn't even done the album or of some of the recordings [yet]. The songs just came together at jams or gigs.

Jim Norton: Was "Fairies Wear Boots" a response to an attack after you came out of a recording studio or is that just a rumor? Someone said it had to do with an attack by skinheads?

Tony Iommi: [Laughs] Oh no, no, no. That was another thing that happened. We never wrote about that. That was just a fight we got into in the '70's. But no, it didn't refer to that at all.

Jim Norton: Fused is such an amazing CD and I want to congratulate you once again on such a great album.

Tony Iommi: Thank you very much.


The day AFTER this interview was conducted, this sign was hung throughout PNC BANK Arts Center, announcing that Black Sabbath would not be performing that evening.